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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26493766">Ultra Numb</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Razer_Athane/pseuds/Razer_Athane'>Razer_Athane</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Tekken (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Break Up, Drug Use, Established Relationship, F/M, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Memories, Mental Anguish, New Relationship, Post-Break Up, Recovery, Relationship(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 08:14:44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,418</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26493766</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Razer_Athane/pseuds/Razer_Athane</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>You make me want to try.<br/>[Hwoarang-centric]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hwoarang/Julia Chang, Hwoarang/Miharu Hirano</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. light</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p><span class="u">Disclaimer:</span> I own nothing. </p><p><span class="u">Original Publication Date:</span> 2nd June 2012 (fanfiction.net) </p><p><span class="u">Author's Note:</span> This series (in full) originally began as unrelated vent pieces a long time ago (on my fanfiction.net account). But towards the end, it evolved into something else that impacted me. A small, heavy story wormed out over the years, connecting oneshot to oneshot to oneshot. I felt it was time I structured them without the other pieces interfering. The tense will shift per chapter, but it is all Hwoarang's perspective and story. I hope you enjoy, and in a way, I hope you find it cathartic.</p><p> <b>CHAPTER WARNING: mentions of drug use and alcoholism.</b></p>
    </blockquote><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>He will make her regret this. He will <i>make her</i> regret it. "You did this to me."</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>The scars that won't fade away are always on the heart.</em>
</p><p>He watches as she delivers the verdict. Goodbye. That's it. After all of these years, that's simply it, but 'we'll always be friends, you've become too important; but this… is too awkward for me now.'</p><p>'Just friends' isn't good enough, and it's so unlike him to plead, beg, cry, but Hwoarang's reduced to the most basic of emotions and instincts. He tells her that, and as always, as left-brained as she always has been, she says nothing even as he falls apart in front of her.</p><p>"I can't let you go," he says.</p><p>Julia remains mute. She just watches him break further in her silence. Somehow, the fact that she seems completely unaffected by her choice and his reaction makes him hurt more. It’s more painful than any slap in the face, any kick to the groin, any shout or attack at his selfish pride.</p><p>He grabs a fistful of his red hair, "You <em>made </em>it awkward," an accusing, but true-in-his-opinion glare follows, "You <em>made it </em>awkward because of this! I was fine! I could work through this!"</p><p>He's trying to catch the pieces of himself faster than he's able, and he's paralysed in his own sense of failure; and he's saying so many things, things he's not sure if he means, his deepest worries and there is too much fire to hold in.</p><p>"It's him? Because he's <em>smart </em>and has a few more common interests?"</p><p>Nothing.</p><p>"After <em>everything </em>I've done for you?"</p><p>Nothing.</p><p>Hwoarang reels in his desire to grab her and shake her by the shoulders as he shouts, "Why aren't you fighting for this?"</p><p>Julia merely looks at him. And then he understands.</p><p>Because she can't.</p><p>He swipes the tears from his eyes and points to the door, "Fine. Go and be free. Leave me to fuckin' rot. I hope you're happy with your damn wings."</p><p>Without a word, she slinks from his apartment and closes the door behind her. He stares at the spot she was last in, as though her image remained imprinted in the particles in the air, as though he's trying to find them again. To find the Julia that still loved him and would've fought to keep their many years together, alive, happy.</p><p>She couldn't because she wasn't in love with him anymore.</p><p>He grabs at his white shirt, his heart, his weak, stupid heart, and tries to calm himself.</p><p>Somewhere amongst the remainder of passion's tears, the Korean finds himself curled up on the floor, a hand still at his chest. The ground is cold and unforgiving. The air is bitter and icy. His eyes hurt as he gazes into nothing, and as he ignores the attention-seeking roar of his house phone somewhere in the distance.</p><p><em>Where are </em>my <em>wings?</em></p>
<hr/><p>Hwoarang's always known that he's had violent tendencies, but punching a brick wall repeatedly in the days that follow the breakup are doing little to cure his heartbreak, pain and anger. His knuckles are grazed. Blood trails down the back of his hand.</p><p>Baek merely observes the closest thing he has to a son crumble from the inside out. There is little else he can do, and he fears that soon, the redhead he knows will be gone forever. He'll be somewhere with the pack of black dogs, unable to resurface. And he worries.</p><p>They've sparred several times already. Nothing Baek does or suggests is of any help. He wants to hate Julia for what she has done – to even blame <em>him</em> at one point – but despite everything, she's a good person, no matter how stupidly things have happened.</p><p>He can't watch this anymore.</p><p>Baek grabs the first aid kit from under his chair and heads over to clean the blood and fix it all up. Because he knows that he can't do much else.</p>
<hr/><p>'<em>You believe me when I said it wasn't you, right?'</em></p><p>The phone lays face down on the floor after reading that text message.</p><p>He has contacts. People. Friends, who only offer paper-thin condolences and don't offer to hang out to get his mind off of it. Hwoarang has begged Asuka to hang out with him and make him smile again, because his face has become too accustomed to a deep frown. But she can't. Medical school and all that jazz. The thirty minutes she can offer isn't enough.</p><p>He has contacts. People. Enemies, who give him anything destructive he needs to feel better, because Hwoarang is <em>weak, </em>and now is the time to ruin him. To end him. To strike him until he can't get back up – or make him do it himself.</p><p>"Try it," one says to the martial artist, organising the line on the glass coffee table until it is perfectly straight, "It'll help get your mind off of stupid, hurtful whores."</p><p>There is hesitance, because it is wrong. Then there is sheer enthusiasm, because Hwoarang is in need of relief. He wants to stop hurting. He needs to feel.</p><p>He leans forward, all the way forward until he's almost curled over it, and then he breathes and all stings, and all is white. He waits. It's not enough. And again and again and again until his eyes water and he starts choking, and he needs a fucking smoke right <em>now.</em></p><p>Somewhere on the ground, the phone shakes.</p><p>'<em>You believe me when I said I still love you, right?'</em></p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>Need more gotta have more –</em>
</p><p>
  <em>- I still hurt –</em>
</p><p><em>- I still </em>weep <em>and </em>bleed <em>and </em>die <em>because of </em>you!</p><p>A shot. It burns. It's not enough.</p><p><em>Weeks </em>of these things, weeks of it not. Being… <em>Enough</em>.</p><p>He reaches for the bottle and he drinks, and he can barely keep the liquid in his mouth or swallow it. His head pounds as he swallows the painkiller too, because fuck it, why not? He can't cope. He can't take it. He can't manage like this, but at the same time, he can't and doesn't want to break free.</p><p>Something in him snaps quite suddenly. Fault, his fault, it is his, no matter what she fucking says, because he's not and never has been good enough for her stupid fucking love. The Korean kicks the table, and when it falls, the glass shatters. Powder flies. Cardboard scatters. Needles roll along the ground and look up at him hauntingly. It catches a glint of sunlight and shines into his eyes.</p><p>He runs to the window, the filthy, fucking bright glass window. He pulls the blinds down, he turns off the light switches, he shuts off every damn light until he is drowning in more darkness. And it is still not enough. His efforts are as worthless as he is. As he was to her. As he still is. As he always had been to everyone.</p><p>"Haksaeng?"</p><p>He glares at the front door and is inwardly glad that he never gave Baek a key, "Fuck off."</p><p>There's no response, no sound, nothing but needles and his arm and his anger.</p><p>It's. Not. <strong>ENOUGH</strong>.</p>
<hr/><p><em>Where did I go? </em>he wonders.</p><p>Lights. He hisses and covers his eyes because light isn't welcome and it was a mistake to have let it in in the first place. He needs to hide in the shadows, where he always belongs. The shadows are <em>forgiving </em>and they are like him – <em>forgotten.</em></p><p>Water. It's cold. He swipes at his eyes because it's annoying and drags his nails down his cheeks thereafter. Light red marks follow the descent. A small sting. It's not enough to distract him. He scratches again. A little better, but it is still not strong enough.</p><p>Air. He chokes. It's too clean, much too clean, unfit, bad. Hwoarang brings the cigarette to his mouth and inhales more more more <em>more more more more more more </em>fucking toxic smoke until he is <em>swimming </em>–</p><p>'<em>You have one new message.'</em></p><p>Hwoarang runs from the bathroom, from his place in front of the mirror. The shadows encompass him again as his weakening body pushes him into the bedroom, to the landline, to the foreign, invading sound –</p><p>"<em>I'm worried about you –"</em></p><p>There is silence as he rips the cords from the wall. The ghost, she is gone, and yet she continues to haunt him. He trembles and his eyes hurt, because there's nothing left to cry about. Right?</p><p>He will make her regret this. He will <em>make </em>her <em>regret it.</em></p>
<hr/><p>Voices –</p><p>"Shock."</p><p>– are –</p><p>"Stupid."</p><p>– <em>everywhere.</em></p><p>"No one was worth this…" a soft, deep sigh, "Why didn't you talk to me?"</p><p>Lights again lights again <em>lights and the smell of this place is horrible </em>–</p><p>He sits up, the world is silent again, and he shields his eyes, <em>no light for me, get it the fuck away from me, it fucking </em>burns. There's then dizziness, and he makes sure that even as he falls, back into the nothing, back into whatever, that he keeps his goddamn eyes closed. He rubs his nose, and he can feel that it's wet. He wonders.</p><p>It's Baek and Asuka, he soon realises, because no one else would talk to him like that or make such a comment, and he just wants them to fucking go away. Julia is worth this to him, but he doesn't know how much, or where the line was crossed anymore; he just wants this to fucking stop.</p><p>He keeps his eyes closed and he listens, and Asuka is badgering him all the more about keeping all of this from her. "You're fucking stupid, you know that?" she snits. He can hear her cracking her knuckles, "You're an idiot."</p><p>"Fuck off," Hwoarang growls under his breath.</p><p>There's silence.</p><p>Beautiful.</p><p>Silence.</p><p>Again.</p>
<hr/><p>"I need it."</p><p>Punish, pain, <em>I can do this to myself you fucking idiots…</em></p><p>"I <em>need it!</em>" he tries to move, but held back by weaklings. What is he, then?</p><p>
  <em>I can see your face and I can smell your stupid fucking shampoo –</em>
</p><p>"<em>Give it to me!" </em>Hwoarang's desperate.</p><p>
  <em>Please let me fly away.</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>Shadows, again, and he doesn't even know where he is.</p><p>Somewhere, lost, wandering, hiding from the fucking light, needing the smoke to survive because he doesn't like oxygen anymore. He isn't… <em>human… </em>anymore, he doesn't even recognise himself and he just doesn't fucking care because this has gotta fucking stop somewhere.</p><p>He wanders away from the hospital, clinic, thing, whatever, dressed as though he's completely and utterly okay, bandages coiling up his forearms and stopping just above his elbows to hide the punctures. His jeans are comfortable, but Hwoarang's not even comfortable in his own skin.</p><p>He wanders, and wonders, how she is. What she's doing. If she's found someone. It's been months as far as he knows, but he's not been told how many. Too much distortion. Too much hiding, too much cocaine and needles and too much, too many destructive ways to pull himself apart and make her regret ever leaving him.</p><p>His body shakes. Need need need need. Rush.</p><p>And then a cup shatters somewhere.</p><p>Hwoarang's eyes dart to the source of the sound, and then he swears he's going to break again and just jump head first into this entire destructive cycle again. And again. And again until everything goes back to how it was or until he works out a proper way to cope, one that's not going to be the end of him. Even if he can't stop. Even if he hates and needs.</p><p><em>Where are </em>my <em>wings?</em></p><p>A soft hand, over his, sobs, "I'm sorry…"</p><p>Words –</p><p>"I tried to –"</p><p>– are –</p><p>"- but you wouldn't pick up and when Baek told me I –"</p><p>– <em>Meaningless.</em></p><p>And somewhere in between the dazed wonderland he had forged for himself and for the heaven he wanted to die to get back into, Julia takes him to her apartment and lets him scream, shudder, cry, break until there is nothing left for him, nothing left in him, nothing at all; and she doesn't judge him.</p><p>"You did this to me," he croaks.</p><p>His eyes fixate on the lamp across the room. It is dim, but not overwhelming. Warm. Welcoming.</p><p>Time.</p><p>There are apologies and promises to always be friends and to try and help each other. She says she'll help him get out of the cycle that she triggered, and he says nothing. He's comfortable. For the first time in a long time, he is comfortable, no matter how much he hurts.</p><p>The light doesn't burn.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. sunlight</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>You expressed such guilt. I remember that you cried, but you know what? I wish you fucking cried <i>more.</i></p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p><span class="u">Disclaimer:</span> I own nothing.</p>
<p><span class="u">Original Publication Date:</span> 13th April 2014 (fanfiction.net)</p>
<p><span class="u">Author's Note:</span> Grateful for the kudos, guys! I hope you enjoy this chapter too.  </p>
<p>
  <b>CHAPTER WARNING: vague mention of drug use.</b>
</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Your words – just the words, no longer the voice – still bounce around in my mind from time to time. About you, about me, about us. About how you just couldn’t fight for something that was once genuine.</p>
<p>I don’t know how long it’s been since I stopped myself from taking those measly steps towards your door, everyday as I had done even months after things... fell apart. I don’t remember how long it’s been since someone told me that I was only hurting myself more in the end, or how many times I thought about a fucking needle, even after I... conquered the dependency.</p>
<p>Since then I’ve remembered how to love myself. Because no one else could.</p>
<p>There are definitely times I think about you, always. I mean, I loved you, right? It’s natural to think about you. But as I see you there, standing on the opposite end of the train, I realise that it’s not in the ways that I used to anymore.</p>
<p>I see you, with your hair tied back. Your red glasses are still perched on your tiny nose. You’re looking down at a book in your hand. Your nails are long and a chipped, bright red, like your insides. You don’t see me through the crowd. I am a ghost, tethered to the ground by memories of your arms and heroin; of your tender touch and cocaine. </p>
<p>Once, a long time ago, you were something beautiful. To the world, to me. Great, sweeping grey wings that could carry any burden, with the stars in your eyes and the will and brains to go wherever you wanted. To achieve what you insisted you’d been put on this earth for. To be something wonderful.</p>
<p>And I was so lucky, so fortunate to be able to hold you in my pale, repulsive fingers. That you’d grace my palms with your soft lips and remind me that life is <em>good</em>. That I don’t need to remember how bad things could be, how much life could hurt, because the present was good and the future looked to be as well. That maybe, just maybe, I could make myself into something. Something just a fraction as wonderful as you are.</p>
<p>As you were.</p>
<p>Isn’t funny how time changes perceptions?</p>
<p>Once, a long time ago, you were something beautiful. To the world, to me. But to me... Now you are <em>ugly</em> and <em>raw</em>. Stars burn out, <em>dear</em>. Your face is gaunt. Your breath smells like ash. Your fingers are withered, stripped of their warmth, now as cold as the bones that hide there. Your posture is as horrible as mine now, despite fighting tooth and nail to make sure it was <em>picture fucking perfect.</em> The result of your deed shows inside and out.</p>
<p>And your wings. Your damn wings. The wings I fucking <em>fell</em> for to make sure you got, in the end... <em>Where are</em> your wings, Julia?</p>
<p>You make me fucking sick.</p>
<p>I would’ve taken a bullet for you. I told you almost every day. You heard it every time I mentioned the street gangs, the fights, the army. You’d smile and nod. But you never, not <em>once</em> said anything remotely similar. Maybe I should’ve seen it then, that I was just... <em>nothing.</em> Or that you saw yourself as something more important, even as words of love spilled from your stupid fucking lips. I would’ve torn the world <em>apart</em> for you. And you couldn’t even offer me the same.</p>
<p>The person I would’ve taken a bullet for was behind the trigger, in the end.</p>
<p>I ended up in hospital because of you. It’s something I unfortunately still remember and feel in my bones. The helplessness and the heartbreak, and the way that the future suddenly felt like it would hurt me like you did. <em>You</em> did that to me. Out of sight, out of mind. Off my face. Stabbing my arms and stuffing white powder up my nose until I couldn’t <em>feel</em> anymore, until I couldn’t <em>hear</em> you or see you or smell you. Until you were finally fucking gone, if only for a little while. Hiding from the light.</p>
<p>You expressed such guilt. I remember that you cried, but you know what?</p>
<p>I wish you fucking cried <em>more.</em></p>
<p>I never needed you anyway, Julia. And now I believe it. I’ve bettered myself while you wasted away, while you kept your face inside of books that never took you anywhere. While you did things that never really made that much of a difference in the end, did it? You haven’t moved in life at all. Literally at all. Not an inch since the first year or so of our relationship. And it makes me wonder if you would’ve moved further at all if you hadn’t of cleaved me in two.</p>
<p>When I think about that time, I can’t remember a damn thing. I don’t remember how your face lights up and how your eyes shine. I don’t remember the way we would laugh. I don’t remember the way I would try and teach you Korean because you’d ask, or how you would read something scientific to me because I wanted to understand what you loved. I don’t. <em>I don’t.</em></p>
<p>It’s a giant, gaping black hole. A blank, where I can only pick out the worst of things. About how you manipulated everyone around you, most of all me. And how you didn’t even know that you <em>did</em>, and yet I am the expert in exploitation and I still fucking fell for it. About how you’d swear that you loved me, and then you’d declare that the way to get through life is to look out for yourself and <em>only</em> yourself.</p>
<p>I’ll give you one thing, Julia. You were right about that.</p>
<p>But you sure as hell picked the wrong time to remind me about how cruel the world really was. Illness and war. About how fucking <em>horrific</em> people could really be. And you sure as hell showed me that you never cared as much as you proclaimed, picking the one time <em>I needed you</em>, and you still just... let it fall away. Just to get your damn wings.</p>
<p>When I think about you, I don’t think about how sweet you sounded when I made you laugh. I don’t think about how much you hurt me when you tore open my chest, ripped out my bitter heart and sucked all of the warmth from it. No. I think about what you are doing right now. I think about where you are in life and how you haven’t crawled forward.</p>
<p>I think about you in your apartment, drinking your coffee – with two sugars – and the despair you feel over the research papers that gave you so much trouble. I think about how mundane your life is, whereas I’m travelling, moving, <em>doing</em> and <em>living</em> and <em>breathing</em>. I think about how you are stuck in a place in time, thinking about me while I take on the world and bend it to my will.</p>
<p>I’d like to imagine that you are as miserable as I am.</p>
<p>But I know you’re not. I know it now, when you look at your phone. It’s in your eyes. It’s the way they used to shine when you’d see I had called. But there’s excitement smeared across your wretched face, excitement that you never used to have for me. You take a picture of yourself and send it off to whoever the man is. I don’t know if it’s Steve and I really don’t care anymore. Because <em>I don’t need you.</em></p>
<p>I don’t need you at all, and I never did.</p>
<p>I have become smarter and stronger. I bettered myself.</p>
<p>I have stitched and cleaned the wounds that you left. My battle scars.</p>
<p>When your eyes finally lift up because it’s your train stop, my stop, our stop... You freeze. You don’t even breathe. Your eyes falter, and it feels so good, in the <em>worst</em> kind of way, to see that. I stare without wanting to fall into myself, without wanting to stuff pills down my throat to hide from the memory of your destruction. To cower in fear because of the particles that still follow me silently and remind me that once, I was vulnerable.</p>
<p>That once, you destroyed me.</p>
<p>The urge to bare my teeth is almost overwhelming, but I hold it down. I won’t rip you apart like the lamb you always were, like the bad person that your Mother insisted that I was. And you wouldn’t taste beautiful as you once did. You would taste rotten. You don’t bleed. You leak poison. And you don’t even know it.</p>
<p>I am the <em>wolf</em>, Julia. I always have been. And I always will be.</p>
<p>I have grieved until I forgotten what it was like to be <em>happy</em>.</p>
<p>I have fought <em>addiction</em> and I <em>won.</em></p>
<p>The train pulls to a stop. It creaks and squeaks until it has no voice left. Time still feels slow, so very slow as my mind continues to engulf me. It feels like I saw you there a month ago, even though it was something like five minutes. A lot to feel in five minutes... A lot to remember in five minutes.</p>
<p>We stand in the carriage, just watching each other, wondering who will say what or if anybody will move. You’re holding onto the handles above you. I am leaning against the wall. But I am <em>astute</em> and <em>proud.</em> You are <em>asinine</em> and <em>pathetic.</em> In my eyes, you are. In my eyes, even when I think back, you now always have been.</p>
<p>The people around us file out and begin to descend down the stairs on the platform that we’re supposed to move onto. The sunlight filters in from the open doors. It warms me. It falls over my face and my arms, inspiring me to tilt my chin forward just the slightest bit. It doesn’t burn. It excludes you. The shadows swallow you whole, and it makes you look down.</p>
<p>There’s silence.</p>
<p>Beautiful.</p>
<p>Silence.</p>
<p>Again.</p>
<p>My smile shines on with or without you, Julia, like the sun that accepts me and denies <em>you.</em> Like life. I found my happiness, and it was with <em>myself.</em> Even if I try and focus on that giant, gaping black hole, I can’t find a single piece of light. You snuffed it out the day you said it was awkward, it’s just it took a while to reach me, like a star going out in a system. Like your eyes, dull and no longer alive. There’s just nothing. Or maybe the light was never there.</p>
<p>And I am left with this <em>filthy</em> fucking memory of a girl who abandoned me when I needed her the most.</p>
<p>Sure, I am lonely. I can see that question dancing behind your eyes as you clutch your phone and book tighter to your beaten up, old denim jacket. You take a single, delicate step towards me and then think better of coming closer. Maybe you realise that I am the wolf. But as my nostrils flare and I gnash my teeth to combat a sudden desire to speak, I remember the vulnerability, and how I swore, <em>how I swore</em> on that day I walked away from your door... that I would never <em>ever</em> feel it again. That I’d be numb to it.</p>
<p>Even if my bitter heart <em>freezes.</em></p>
<p>But there’s one thing that I still know, Julia. Even if my bitter heart freezes. Even if ice surrounds the outside of it, as it beats within a glass confinement, hidden from the world in my pale, repulsive fingers. Even if you become an even bigger black hole, to the point where I forget not only the details, but the bigger picture.</p>
<p>There’s one thing that you never took away from me.</p>
<p>You murmur my name as I turn into the sunlight and take the first step onto the platform. It sounds wrong on your tongue, and I almost want to rip it out of your throat. As I take the steps away from you that I took months ago, when I remembered how to love myself and when I chose to better myself, I affirm that I am better off without you. And I remember that I will always be who I am, warm, strong.</p>
<p>It’s always summer in my heart and in my soul.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. sleep</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>You make me want to try.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p><span class="u">Original Publication Date:</span> 16th September, 2015</p>
<p><span class="u">Author's Note:</span> Thanks for reading, hope you enjoy this chapter!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>But tonight will pass us by<br/></em>
  <em>As we’re breathing in this moonlit air<br/></em>
  <em>Tonight will pass us by<br/></em>
  <em>As the world it seems to disappear</em>
  
</p>
<hr/>
<p>Scars don’t fade.</p>
<p>They mark us, as our all our experiences do. Blemishes on our skin that will always remind us of the pain we went through. Arcs on our hearts of the ones that hurt us the most. Like starlight glittering on the breaking waves, and maps above that cannot be decoded except by those in the know. Secrets that only you carry, that somehow still affect your future, blemish what is good with what was fucking terrible.</p>
<p>It’s hard to hold myself up and love my scars, but I’m trying.</p>
<p>Each scar tells a story of its own, with feelings unique to each experience. A tale that we remember in quick flashes at a glance, from the red eyes to the nausea and back again. Those feelings resurface sometimes and they feel as new as the day that we were marked. Or sometimes they pull up a tidal wave of emotion from the sheer memory that <em>suffocates</em> some men and drown others. But they aren’t <em>new.</em></p>
<p>I survived that. I still don’t know how. </p>
<p>I believed once that the scars that won’t fade away are on the heart.</p>
<p>
  <em>I was wrong.</em>
</p>
<p>God, I was wrong.</p>
<p>They will always be there, ugly and stitched but no less unique, no less me. An explanation all on their own, of the bullshit that I have lived through. Of what I have crushed and conquered, and am somehow still standing after. They still itch sometimes, once in a blue moon, for no fucking reason; but they don’t <em>rip open</em> anymore. I don’t know if they’re truly shut, and I don’t know if they will ever be. The scar is still there. It still fucks with my head. But they’re <em>holding,</em> they’re <em>fading.</em></p>
<p>They don’t tear under the pressure anymore.</p>
<p>They marked who I was then and who I am now, affecting so many parts of me; and I wish I was strong enough to say words I used to fucking throw around like they were <em>nothing</em> – but they mean something, <em>they mean so fucking much</em> and I <em>feel</em> it.</p>
<p>“What time is it?”</p>
<p>“Eleven at night,” I answer, eyes diverting to the digital letters at the other side of the room.</p>
<p>“Ugh, alright, alright. I’ll get up.”</p>
<p>How did I fucking find you?</p>
<p>As I watch you sit up and start busying yourself – brushing your hair, putting that beat up purple hat on your head, making sure you’ve got everything in your bag because you don’t want to forget shit in another hotel room <em>again</em> – I’m reminded of things I’ve said before <em>this</em>. Of times where I could open my stupid mouth and let eight letters, three words dribble out so <em>fucking </em>easily.</p>
<p>Of things that now constrict in my throat and no matter how hard I try, they won’t come out.</p>
<p>Fear.</p>
<p>I remember Julia. Oh, yeah, I remember her well enough, even as she continues to walk away from my recollection, swallowed by fog and shunned by the sun she claimed to so dearly love. Even as she recedes further into the darkest parts of my memory, the ones that I can’t completely remember even if I wanted to. But I remember enough.</p>
<p>The stony expression, left-brained and unblinking before me. The constant compromising on my part, the emotional… I don’t want to say manipulation. I don’t think it was always purposeful. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. The anxiety inside of me that she doesn’t actually give a shit about me. The desire to let it die and fall apart underneath us – or rather, the inability to combat it anymore.</p>
<p>Since then, I remembered how to love myself, because no one else could; <em>until now.</em></p>
<p>It’s been a while, but I am still left with a filthy fucking memory of a girl who left me when I needed her the most.</p>
<p>When I look at earlier pages as you’re putting your shoes on, when I see what… I put down back then – the desire to fall back and hide in the darkness from the memories, to escape the pain through whatever means necessary – it baffles me. It baffles me because I don’t remember feeling all this because of Julia; I don’t remember it <em>devastating</em> me, <em>ruining</em> me.</p>
<p>Oh but you could, if you wanted to.</p>
<p>You <em>terrify</em> me.</p>
<p>But there isn’t pain anymore, just the memory of it. There hasn’t been <em>pain</em> from those scars in a long time, even though I can still sometimes hear myself screaming, at myself, at her, at the pain and the need and the <em>hate</em> that I thought I was incapable of. But I am not better than that. I tried to be, but I am not.</p>
<p>A few weeks ago I found her words again. Julia’s ones, in messages long past their expiration date. Her words were meaningless then and they are even more meaningless now. Apologies that never felt genuine. Dreams that were never real. Love that never felt <em>legitimate</em>. Like I was a chore.</p>
<p>There was a time where I still felt the desire to hide in the darkness from the sheer memory of the way my heart was all but ripped from my ribcage, with her long fingernails piercing into the organ and leaving crescent moon scars that ached and tore themselves open for a long time. And I have to remind myself <em>again</em> that there isn’t pain anymore. This is now forever a memory, and it will always mar me – maybe I won’t get over this for a long time – but things are <em>better</em> now.</p>
<p>They are <em>so much better.</em></p>
<p>The echo of <em>I can’t let you go </em>from a boy so fucking scared of being alone and watching his bitter heart freeze. <em>Where are my wings,</em> I used to wonder. <em>Where did I go,</em> I used to question. All shit. Because I learnt to be alone again, to be happy in solitude, and <em>it was fine.</em> Because my wings are here, as they always have been, <em>stronger.</em> Because I am still here, and I am better, <em>whole.</em></p>
<p>I’d say that I still wish she cried more, but it is a wasted breath. And I am <em>done</em> wasting them on her.</p>
<p>To think I once thought I loved that woman. A real, gut-wrenching, heart-stopping kind of love.</p>
<p>I had no fucking idea what love was, then.</p>
<p>But I know it now. God, I know it now. And it terrifies me.</p>
<p>I feel your hand on my shoulder, shaking me. I blink a few times, my eyes adjusting from the unfocused stare, looking at you directly in the face. You’re frowning a bit. I fucking hate that shit. It guts me almost as much as your small self-worth. You ask as I adjust the strap of my backpack and slip the stupid red thing that’s partially hidden from your view into my back pocket, “Are you alright?”</p>
<p>“Yeah.”</p>
<p>“Do you have everything?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, let’s go.”</p>
<p>When I stand, you take my fucking hand like it’s not just desired, but <em>needed.</em></p>
<p>The hotel door slams shut behind me. I leave the memory of Julia within its walls.</p>
<p>Wolves don’t have to be alone.</p>
<p>I had grieved until I had forgotten what it was like to be <em>happy.</em></p>
<p>And now I am so happy that I have forgotten what it was like to <em>grieve</em>.</p>
<p>The world spins in many strange circles.</p>
<p>I’m still scared.</p>
<p>“Have you heard from your friends lately?” you ask, carefully descending each step. I’ve noticed you almost have a fear of falling down, in every way. But if you do, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere like those before – I’ll catch you. No reason to be so cautious anymore. And I know you’ve got my back too.</p>
<p>“No,” I reply. “Asuka’s gone back to Osaka and that’s about it.”</p>
<p>“And Xiaoyu? The one that ignored you after you…?”</p>
<p>“I don’t give a shit now. As long as she’s happy.”</p>
<p>Xiaoyu wasn’t satisfying, because she wasn’t sweet. A concept, a <em>lie </em>wrapped in a pink dress. The idea that she was a light out of a dark tunnel, only for it to collapse before I could even make it out. But she is nothing, <em>nothing</em> compared to this light tethered to my hand and gripping and <em>squeezing</em>, like letting go is not a fucking option.</p>
<p>But <em>you.</em> God, <em>you.</em></p>
<p>“Are you both checking out?” the receptionist inquires, pushing her glasses up her tiny nose. You approach her, still holding my hand, and begin talking in rapid Japanese, too fast that I can’t understand it myself. Leaving me standing there in my own head again.</p>
<p>Funny how shit changes.</p>
<p>I remember once – years ago now, really – telling Baek that it never felt like I saw the world in true colour. That I could see colours, but they were muted, faded, like the jeans I practically lived in. Sometimes the colours were bright again, like the yellow and purple pansies that lined the tiniest gardens; and other times there were <em>no </em>colours, nothing but black and white and every shade of grey.</p>
<p>Bursts of extremes with nothing in between.</p>
<p>And then you appeared. And it’s like I can fucking <em>see</em> again.</p>
<p>You literally came out of nowhere, when I had resigned myself to just <em>living.</em> An awkward laugh shared, wrapped up with the smallest of smiles and our eyes locking and <em>‘the name’s Hwoarang’</em> and your hand extending; and there, inside. Past the skin and muscle and bone and through the frozen heart I had kept cold for so <em>fucking</em> long.</p>
<p>
  <em>Life.</em>
</p>
<p>Life.</p>
<p>There was a bit of distance to cross, you and me. The breaking of walls. The showing of fear. Fighting past bad memories – mine and yours. The readiness to accept being vulnerable again, even though it screwed us both up for <em>years</em> with our predecessors. And the admittance that, there is something fucking here. And I <em>want</em> it.</p>
<p>So did you. That’s why I’m standing next to you right now. Because we both wanted it.</p>
<p>You scare me <em>so fucking much</em>, Miharu.</p>
<p>When I had resigned myself to just living, to harden against the ache of the scars when I move, you appeared. When I had accepted and began enjoying being alone, you appeared. When I <em>swore</em> I would never be that vulnerable again, to never let anyone get inside of me like that, you appeared. And you changed all that.</p>
<p>The thought of bearing my wounds to anyone again, of showing that someone fucked me up, that many things fucked me up and have left marks and mental struggles, to allow myself to be so vulnerable… in my weaknesses and my strengths; my dreams and my nightmares; my hopes and my despairs; my sicknesses and my health. It scares me. Makes me feel sick.</p>
<p>And then you appeared, and it’s almost like I am <em>strong</em> again. More than when I learnt I couldn’t forgive not because I hadn’t tried, but that I simply could not.</p>
<p>I wonder what the old man would think of you. He’d probably just nod with a grin, glad for my happiness.</p>
<p>You get it. You get so much that it’s just, it’s just… I can’t.</p>
<p>The one thing that scares me more is this ache in my chest when I look at you, and the way that I feel almost <em>invincible</em> again – <em>almost</em> invincible, because <em>she</em> reminded me that I am, in fact, vulnerable. But you peeled all that back, you fought through the walls of iron and all the mental bullshit and <em>you found me,</em> even when I swore I would never be found again.</p>
<p>The feeling that I am more than nothing on the side of the road; that I am gold, and you helped shape me into something beautiful again. <em>Precious, </em>even. It trips me up. It fucking trips me up.</p>
<p>You caring about me as much as you do, being comfortable with showing it and being so accepting and <em>understanding</em> – I wish I could tell you how thankful I am for all this. But I’m shit with words, and shittier with melodies and chords, so it stays inside; a festering, pleasant ache against the memories that rotted and continue to fade with each day that passes.</p>
<p>Your words to the receptionist come to a complete stop. She’s giving you an odd look. I know better. I know that it’s something inside of you trying to claw out, so I squeeze your hand. You were never good with public speaking, you said once. And then you continue talking, slowly at first, choosing your words carefully until you are confident again.</p>
<p>You told me once about that feeling in your chest, the one that you hate and that makes you almost always second guess your thoughts, your words, your actions. Where a thought consumes you and you can’t help but obsess over it, because that’s what anxiety does, that’s what anxiety is. I understand that and said ‘same.’</p>
<p>I told you once about the feeling in my mind, the one that drains all the colour and makes you wonder what the fucking point of anything is. Where it’s not a desire to just fucking die or something, but just, to fall asleep and wake up later with everything sorted out, or not wake up at all. A flat line feeling. And you get it and said ‘me too.’</p>
<p>We once had some in depth conversation about religion and how we both think it’s a crock of shit, but with good lessons; that people have polluted the best of it, as people always fucking do, because people are shit. We’ve had other conversations about horrible internet jokes, and the stupidity of youth – girls are shit, you say it so much; boys are shit too. I still laugh at your reactions to some of the stories I’ve told you – wrinkled nose, wide, beautiful eyes.</p>
<p>You pull my hand. We start walking out of the hotel and towards the entrance, where my faithful motorbike remains. You tighten your grip on my hand, to the point that your painted blue fingernails start digging into my skin. And it is such a fucking different feeling to past experiences, “So are you going to pick up your guitar again at some point? You should really do what you love, if you still wanted it.”</p>
<p>“Maybe, I don’t know. Might stick with martial arts. I just want to –”</p>
<p>“To leave your mark on the world,” you say, pulling the back of your hat down a little. “I get it.”</p>
<p><em>Of course</em> you do. “Books, right? It’s the same.”</p>
<p>You will make it. You are too curious. I might not, we’ll see.</p>
<p>All I know is I want you in my life. I want to share it with you. I want you to be a part of it.</p>
<p>What I feel scares me. Because I’m not used to it. Because it’s <em>immense.</em></p>
<p>It saddens me that even after months I’m this terrified of you, because of the strength of my feelings for you, because they eclipse anything and <em>everything</em> I have felt before. The knowledge that who I love most, who I’ve let in and allowed to see and be with such vulnerability, also has the power to truly destroy me.</p>
<p>But you are not fucking Julia, whose arms I walked into <em>knowing</em> that it would not last.</p>
<p>You are Miharu, whose eyes I met and felt <em>alive</em> and felt a frightening, immediate, <em>soulful</em> bond.</p>
<p>I am just as scared of the potential possibility of you leaving me one day terrifies me just as much as the fact that I would <em>gladly</em> spend the rest of my entire life with you in a heartbeat.</p>
<p>We’re standing out the front of the hotel. There are some noise and some lights, but it isn’t overwhelming. Tokyo’s beginning to sleep.</p>
<p>“Seriously, where’s your head at?” you ask, tongue touching your teeth lightly. I shrug nonchalantly, because that’s how I’ve always done it. But you see through it anyway, because you are Miharu and you always have; and you let go of my hand to rub my arm. Then something shifts inside me as I go to rest against my motorbike, where it waits to take us somewhere new on the curb.</p>
<p>I pull out the small notebook from my back pocket. The red one the size of my hand that I’ve been scribbling my feelings in for the past five years. You understand then. You see the beaten up cover and the way my hands shake as I hold it. That it’s… things that I’m still struggling with, struggling to get past.</p>
<p>Me at my most vulnerable.</p>
<p>I wrote in this because I needed an outlet for my emotions. Because I’m a ball of rage, flurry of fists and feet, and screaming red hair and a bike that spurts out smoke and only has one side mirror. Because I need somewhere to put my vulnerabilities, to store them. Baek thought it was a good idea – might have something to turn these pages into one day, he said; words with melodies and chords following. Small stories with future sounds. And it worked.</p>
<p>But I don’t need it anymore.</p>
<p>I might need it again one day, but I don’t need it now. And that’s okay. It is shut. It is done.</p>
<p>The pages slide through my fingers, one after the other in reverse order, as I glimpse at them all. Finding myself again, <em>twice,</em> and that time I thought I had a way out of the pain. The time that the scars were born. The desperation. Remembering that I have <em>good people</em> around me, and that I’m not a fucking lonely little boy with a frozen heart. The constant fear of breakdowns. The words slung at me because people didn’t understand – and <em>the rage.</em></p>
<p>That isn’t me anymore.</p>
<p>The cover stares back at me, a beaten red and curling corners. Your hand appears on top of it, pressing it – and all those bad feelings that used to consume me at night and made me question if I really belonged here – <em>down.</em> Away from me. <em>Goodbye.</em></p>
<p>You pull it from my hands, slowly as always, and you hold it shut even as the last of it leaves my fingertips. My hands struggle to cope with the sudden air, grasping as though that stupid notebook remains. I stare at the nothingness and note that my fingers are still trembling slightly. I am still adjusting to being vulnerable again.</p>
<p>And then you press your mouth firmly to the notebook and then my forehead and I’m just so fucking <em>overwhelmed</em> with feelings that I feel like I could collapse into tears. But I don’t.</p>
<p>You are as easy as <em>breathing</em> and I adore you for it.</p>
<p>“Alright, let’s go,” I say, straddling my bike. You put the notebook in <em>your</em> bag, carrying and shouldering my flaws, taking them away for now so that I don’t have to feel them. I feel like my voice cracks, that it strains, but I hope I hide it well enough to add, “Just, somewhere.”</p>
<p>“Okay. Moving forward into a new adventure, to wherever the hell we like! Together.”</p>
<p>Jesus, I love you. I really fucking do. I hope you know that.</p>
<p>I can’t say it, but I’m gonna fight myself every single day until I can.</p>
<p>A trail of smoke follows, limping down the streets of Ikebukuro: next stop, <em>everywhere.</em></p>
<p>You make me want to try.</p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <em>But I’m here with you</em><br/>
  <em>We will drive forever<br/></em>
  <em>We will drive forever.</em>
</p>
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